We're here!!!

We’re finally here!!! In our new house!!! On our new farm!!!!!! And we LOVE it! In our 2-bedroom house! LOL!!! Construction started the day after we moved in. Now after a week, Will’s room is framed, Mikaylie’s room is framed, boys’ bath is framed and laundry room is framed. The two carports have garage doors and are now closed garages and the enormous boat garage door is gone. Eighty percent of belongings are in the garages. Thankfully the kitchen and lounge were already satisfactory so it’s not too bad. And the laundry hookups can stay where they are in the boat garage until the laundry room is plumbed, which is already nearly done.

Joe is here and has a new temporary paddock mate in the form of a cute, little mini named Dream on load from a friend. Dream will stay until we find a nice, quiet family horse to keep Joe company.

The dogs seem to like the new place but keeping them from chasing the horses has proven a challenge.  There’s an electric fence surrounding the yard that is keeping Charlie in now that he’s been zapped. He started to go under it and when it shocked him, he bolted into the house and charged up the stairs to our room. I expected to find him hiding under our bed where he would often go in our old house when he wanted to hide but he wasn’t’ there. I checked the closet but he wasn’t there either. I went to check our bathroom where I found him in the shower! For the following 3 days we had to drag him out the door to go pee!

Pete, on the other hand, has darted under the fence 5 times without getting zapped, managing to go between pulses every time. I’ve had to put him out on a long lead to keep him from driving the horses mad. Today, on the lead, he darted under on the lead to get at the horses. I kept hoping he’d get zapped but he just wouldn’t! He darted back under but on the other side of the post so that the lead was wrapped around the post. He started to go back under but this time, FINALLY, he got it! ZAP!!! I’m praying that’s done it for him. Unlikely, but praying. As I sit here typing, Charlie is out and evidently he’d forgotten about the fence because we just heard him get a refresher. Ouch!

One of the neat things about New Zealand is that everyone takes a tea break midmorning. EVERYONE! At schools, at work, everything stops and everyone has a snack, tea or coffee. So on any given workday of our construction project we have anywhere from 2-6 people working on the house. And around 10am, the drills and saws and hammers go silent and all the guys sit down and have tea. I love it! Ten-15 minutes later, work’s back in full swing.

I really want to post all about our new project, all the building progress and pictures but we have no Internet here yet and we’re just using a stick for necessities. So I’ll post when I can…

Just tried uploading some pics but won't work. Hopefully I can get them up in the next few days.